Despite his party controlling both houses of Congress, it now appears that Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful” budget bill is likely to fail by a wide margin in the U.S. Senate thanks to an odd coalition of Republicans who are worried the massive cuts in Medicaid found in the legislation will hurt the states they represent.
According to Politico, those Republicans can best be called “Medicaid moderates.”
“They’re actually an ideologically diverse bunch — ranging from conservative Josh Hawley of Missouri to centrist Susan Collins of Maine. Yet they have found rare alignment over concerns about what the House-passed version of the GOP domestic-policy megabill does to the national safety-net health program, and they have the leverage to force significant changes in the Senate.”
Just how dire is the future of the Trump budget bill? Consider the numbers.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) can only afford to lose three GOP senators on a party-line vote, and many Republicans are making it clear that massive Medicaid cuts are a non-starter for them, which would mean the bill cannot move forward.
The Medicaid moderates are not exactly who you’d expect to be bucking the White House.
“Besides Hawley and Collins, other GOP senators including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Jim Justice of West Virginia have also drawn public red lines over health care — and they have some rhetorical backing from President Donald Trump, who has urged congressional Republicans to spare the program as much as possible.”
Ironically, the GOP has painted themselves into this corner by counting on cuts in Medicaid to offset the cost of massive tax cuts for the wealthy. If those Medicaid reductions aren’t able to pass muster in the Senate, the tax cuts would have to be pared back or the legislation would have to be scrapped and replaced with another budget formula, an outcome that would likely enrage Trump and cost the party political capital.
No matter what transpires in the weeks ahead, Republicans will be blamed. And that’s likely to cost them now and next year in the midterm elections.
